Social Media Tips

5 steps to obtaining sales through LinkedIn

When making an approach to a potential new client on LinkedIn it can be difficult not to come across as pushy or spammy. If you follow the process below you’ll avoid being pushy and will improve your chances of obtaining quality business via LinkedIn.

Here are five steps to obtaining sales through LinkedIn:

1) Save searches – set up saved searches to arrange a weekly email of potential contacts. For example, if you provide medical supplies to doctor’s surgeries you can receive a weekly email of local doctors. I’ve set up a saved search of local PR and marketing professionals. For instructions on how to set up a LinkedIn saved search view this #tweetthat video.

2) State commonalities – mentioning a shared hobby or a mutual connection sets the tone in an initial message and should create some interest to your approach. For example, if you’ve done some work for a mutual connection make sure to mention it and refer to the project if relevant.

3) Be brief – we are all very busy and an over long message might not get read at all. Make sure your initial message is no more than 150 words.

4) Talk about working together – Rather than blatant self promotion talk about ‘working together’ and make sure to state the benefits of doing so.

5) Consider InMail – one of the benefits of LinkedIn’s Business account is the facility to be able to send an email to any member of LinkedIn; and there are a 150 million of them. Your message will also be displayed on their homepage. By using LinkedIn this way they state that you’re 30 times more likely to get a response using InMail than by a regular email.

More on this at my LinkedIn Masterclass on Wednesday 30 May in Cheltenham – it’s £87 including lunch.

How to get retweeted to 245,000 people

Started in October 2010 by @TheoPaphitis, from BBC Dragons’ Den, the Small Business Sunday hashtag or #sbs on Twitter is going from strength to strength. It helps small business owners gain increased exposure and potential new clients by awarding 6 retweets on Sunday nights. Theo has more than 245,000 Twitter followers plus ‘winners’ profiles get displayed on the #sbs website. So the exposure to potential new clients is huge and with more followers, increased traffic to your website and lots of publicity the chances of making more sales are high.

20 mins left for this weeks #SBS tweet me your small business and I will retweet my fav 6 and a place on theopaphitissbs.com Good Luck !

— Theo Paphitis (@TheoPaphitis) May 13, 2012

The #sbs idea is developing. Past winners are encouraged to add their profiles to the #sbs website and concept has moved to the face to face world with an event held at Edgbaston Cricket Stadium on 30 March 2012. This provided an opportunity to network with past #sbs winners.

Around 2000 tweets are received each Sunday evening so on pure chance there’s approximately a 1 in 300 chance of being selected. Not bad considering the potential benefits and the minual effort required to enter. As well as business benefits previous winners have spoken about being given a boost from congratulatory messages and support from others on Twitter.

If you run a small business I’d encourage you to enter. The rules are detailed on the #sbs website website.

5 great ideas for tweets

So you’ve decided on the objective for your Twitter use and you’ve set up your profile. So now it’s time to post and your mind has gone blank. I’d strongly suggest that you produce a content plan which includes content type and dates. Below are a few ideas that will help with your Twitter marketing and customer services. The main thing to bear in mind is that you need to ‘put your audience first’ and to provide them with value.

1) Ask questions – Start conversations with questions. You can then get to know your audience better. Seek opinions and ask people what they’re up to. If you’re not sure of what type of content your audience is looking for them then why not ask?

2) Provide answers – Good customer services means answering questions from customers with complete answers. On Twitter people expect an answer from a business or brand within a few hours. You could also publish answers that you’re provided in the past that customers have found useful.

3) Tweet tips – The fact that the characters are limited to 140 per tweet ensures that you have to be concise. But that’s enough rooms for short tips related to the service you provide. Still stuck? Everyone likes IT tips.

4) Publicise your events – Use Twitter to provide information about your upcoming events eg workshops, conferences, open days etc. Provide useful information and include a link to a booking form or the event website. Encourage your audience to publicise your event by creating a hashtag. More on hashtags in this #tweetthat video.

5) Publish photos and videos – Photos and videos are displayed best on Google+, followed by Facebook and then Twitter. However, you can still provide value and engage people by tweeting photos and videos. Twitter.com and most mobile apps now display photos and videos inline so they’re displayed automatically and can really enhance a tweet. See example below:



How to search status updates on LinkedIn

There’s a cool feature on LinkedIn called Signal but the chances are that you’ve never heard of it. Signal enables you to search both status updates and trending links to articles that have been shared across LinkedIn.

So it’s a great way to find out who’s talking about your favourite topics, to keep up to date with news from your industry and to read popular content that people are sharing across LinkedIn. To put it another way, it’s a tool that helps you listen.

You’re sure to find commonalities and shared interests which provide a great opportunity to start a conversation and to develop your business relationships. You can narrow your search by using a whole range of filters including location, type of networking connection and even hashtags by using the check boxes in the column on the left hand side.

For another LinkedIn tool and tip you might like to watch this #tweetthatvideo:

Twitter tip and tool – #tweetthat [VIDEO]

Here’s a video where I show you how to use Twitter #hashtags and Twitter advanced search.

It’s the second of a series of videos called #tweetthat. Each video contains a social media tip plus a useful tool or resource. If you like this video please share this article using the Tweet button on the left hand side and the #tweetthat hashtag. You can view other videos in the #tweetthat series the Intranet Future YouTube channel.

If you want to learn more about how to use Twitter for your business, organisation or charity please check out my next Twitter Masterclass on Wednesday 16 May.

LinkedIn tip and tool – #tweetthat [VIDEO]

Here’s a video which provides a great LinkedIn tip and a handy tool. I show you how to customise your LinkedIn profile URL and how to use LinkedIn advanced search.

It’s first of a series of videos called #tweetthat. Each video will contain a social media tip plus a useful tool or resource. If you like the video please share this article using the Tweet button on the left hand side and the #tweetthat hashtag.

If you want to learn more about how to use LinkedIn to obtain leads and network please check out my next LinkedIn Masterclass on Wednesday 30 May.

Choose photo for Pinterest board cover

Here’s a tip if you’re one of the every increasing Pinterest users. You can now choose which of your pins is displayed as the cover photo for your board. Previously, the last photo uploaded became the cover photo by default.

Select any photo in your board including the cover photo. Over the cover photo an Edit Board Cover button will hover and on any other photo Select Board Cover will be displayed. Select this button and you can then scroll left and right until the photo you require is displayed. Select Set Cover and you’re done.

So to get your boards looking their best you might want to log on and choose some new cover photos. To keep them fresh I’d suggest changing cover photos on your boards every once in a while.

To help spread the word about Pinterest I’ve scheduled a couple of workshops. The first one is on Tuesday 22 May and the second on Wednesday 27 June. There 2 hours long and cost £47 each.

4 great ideas for embedded tweets

Following on the How to embed a tweet article earlier this month here are a few ideas of how you can use embedded tweets on your website and blog.

1. Alternative to quotes: Instead of quoting people on their opinions, for examples and illustration you could display their original tweet. This is much more authentic than putting text in quote marks.
2. Raise awareness of upcoming events: Draw attention to upcoming events by including tweets. This not only provides information but encourages people to spread the word about the event by retweeting or to ask questions by replying directly from the article.

Next #wearesocialclub is Thursday 26 April with @saskia_says. Hope to see you there!

— #wearesocialclub (@wearesocialclub) April 11, 2012

3. Event follow up: When you write a review or blog post following an event you could include questions raised and comments from the event. This provides a solid and authentic base for the review.
4. Testimonials: Include positive customer or client feedback on your website. As with 1) this is much more authentic than including text in speech marks. You may also get some retweets too which will help spread the word about your business.

How to embed a tweet

Twitter makes it easy to embed tweets on your website or blog. By embedding a tweet you retain the full functionality that users have on Twitter. For example, readers can retweet, reply or favorite the embedded tweet.

Contact us if you would like to represent your wedding business @TheDaffodil in #Cheltenham at a unique wedding fayre!

— Wedding Consultancy (@Glos_Weddings) March 31, 2012

The above embedded tweet is a much better way of using Twitter content for your Twitter marketing than taking a screen shot of a tweet and adding it as an image.

To embed a tweet you need to copy and paste HTML code into your website or blog. Alternatively, you could ask your web designer to do this. On twitter.com, hover over the tweet you wish to embed and select Open, then select Details at the bottom of the tweet. Then select Embed this Tweet.

The code for you to copy and paste into your website or blog will then be displayed. You can choose how the tweet is aligned on the page eg Left, Right or Center.

In a future article I’ll be providing ideas on how you can make use of embedded tweets to improve your Twitter marketing.

5 ways to promote your event using hashtags

Twitter hashtags are great for creating buzz and conversation in the build up to an event and they can also help promote the conversation during and after the event too.

Here are five things you can do to make the most of Twitter hashtags and improve your event marketing:

1. Whether it’s a newsletter or website you are using to promote your event make people aware before the event of what the hashtag is by displaying it as much as possible.
2. Encourage delegates to promote the hashtag. Add this instruction to the delegate or welcome pack.
3. Arrange for staff at the event to have the hashtag on T-shirts or even transfer tattoos.
4. Fill a screen at the event with event tweets using twitterfall.com or visibletweets.com.
5. Use every opportunity to publicise the hashtag at your event eg on speaker’s slide decks, on signage and promotional literature.

For more advice and tips on Twitter check out my regular Twitter workshops in Cheltenham.